Quality gap between
newspapers and television newscasts widens in Bay Area, researchers
find

Focusing on the Iraq
war and California's budget crisis, the Bay Area's three largest newspapers
achieved top scores during the first half of 2003 on seven basic yardsticks
of sound journalism, a team of researchers at Stanford University has
found. But even such compelling issues couldn't lift local television
stations from mediocrity, they said.

From January to July,
Grade the News, a watchdog group affiliated with Stanford's Graduate
Program in Journalism, matched more than 2,200 stories in newscasts
and newspapers to core news standards derived from the Society of Professional
Journalists' Code of Ethics. At least on those basics, they rated the
San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News and Contra
Costa Times in the same category as the Washington Post,
which was used as a standard of excellence. All four papers rated an
overall grade of "A."

The study did not address
fundamentally important but difficult-to-quantify measures of news quality,
said John McManus, director of Grade the News. "We didn't rate
the intelligence of writing or reporting, whether specific important
stories, such as a robust debate on U.S. policy relative to Iraq, were
underplayed or ignored, or the quality of photos or videography.

"We looked at the
basic structure of news, such as the importance of the topics chosen,
the level of context, the potential of a story for wide impact on local
residents and fairness," McManus said. "We aren't saying local
papers match the overall excellence of the Post, but that they
did as well on those basics of journalism amenable to counting."

Compared to Grade the
News' last analysis, in 2000, the new study found newspapers improving
but television stagnating.

"The gap between
the newspapers and television stations increased significantly from
our last survey," McManus said. "Three years ago Channel 2
in Oakland competed with the best local newspapers. But not this time."

The researchers examined
only the stories most likely to be read or seen -- those on the front
and local news front pages of newspapers or the first 30 minutes of
evening newscasts -- in order to minimize print's advantage in volume
over television, said Michael Stoll, associate director of the project.
"We also capped the number of sources we counted at levels compatible
with the shorter length of newscast stories."

A different approach
to news

Despite these adjustments,
researchers found glaring differences between print and television:

The Bay Area
is extraordinarily diverse in all sorts of ways, with multiple perspectives
on any issue. Yet stories with only one named source -- or none at
all -- comprised 35 percent of the airtime during the top half-hour
of news at the stations sampled. Often the single source was a police
officer. In contrast, stories taking only 9 percent of newspaper column
space on the front pages had fewer than two sources.

Stories devoted
to helping citizens keep track of government decisions were given
nearly twice the emphasis in newspapers as in television -- 47 percent
of newspaper column inches versus 25 percent of television airtime.
"These weren't just 'meeting' stories," McManus said, "but
those that tracked the impact on students and teachers of decisions
by school boards, on bus riders by transportation authorities, and
on doctors, patients and university students of cuts in state funding."

Television newsrooms
relied heavily on "spot" news, apparently generated from
listening to scanner radios for mayhem, fires and collisions, rather
than setting their own news agendas or examining pressing public concerns.
The study found that, on average, only 14 percent of airtime was devoted
to issue stories initiated by the journalists themselves. In contrast,
46 percent of newspaper space was devoted to these "enterprise"
or investigative reports.

Even elemental
fairness -- getting both sides of controversies -- was inconsistent:
No station rated above a C+ on that measure, with the exception of
KGO Channel 7, which earned a B+. The newspapers averaged B+.

"Nevertheless, at
every station there were also more than a few stories which scored at
the top of our categories," McManus said. "Local television
news is excellent when it commits the resources."

Television news
directors respond

Several news directors
questioned the validity of the analysis. Kevin Keeshan, news director
at KGO Channel 7, said taking the first 30 minutes of the 6 p.m. newscast
missed his station's investigative efforts and some in-depth reporting
that appear in the second half of the show. "It would be a more
realistic evaluation of what we do and it would have to improve our
grades," he said. "I hit some of those [quality measures]
harder in the second half-hour than the first."

"If we included
the second half of these newscasts, we'd get that featured, longer story,"
McManus responded, "but the overall score might decline because
we'd also be evaluating more sports and light features. However, we're
open to changing our methodology."

The executive of the
lowest scoring station rejected the whole idea of analyzing newspapers
and newscasts together. "You can't compare a newspaper to a TV
newscast," said Jim Sanders, vice president for news and operations
at KNTV Channel 11 in San Jose. "It's like comparing the Celtics
with the Red Sox."

Douglas Foster, who teaches
at the University of California-Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism
and has worked in both broadcast and print news, disagreed: "For
so many years, local television journalists have been defending the
value of their role in news. If you want to argue for the value of broadcast
news, you have to hold it to similar standards." Foster serves
on Grade the News' journalism advisory board, a sounding board of veteran
Bay Area journalists. He took no part in the study.

Grade the News was launched
in 2000 in an effort to help consumers of news evaluate the quality
of the information they watch and read each day, doing for journalism
what Consumer Reports does for cars and computers. It is funded
by the Ford Foundation and the James L. and John S. Knight Foundation.
The full report can be viewed online at www.gradethenews.org.

Core quality
ratings of the Bay Area's most popular news media*

News Org.

News-
worth-
iness**

Context

Explan-
ation

Local
Rele-
vance

Civic
Contri-
bution

Enterprise

Fairness

Overall

Chronicle

B+

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

KTVU

C+

C

C+

A

C+

D

D

C+

Mercury

B+

A

A

A

A

A

B

A

KRON

C

C

C

A

C+

D

D

C

KPIX

D+

D

C+

A

C

D+

C+

C

CC Times

B+

A

B+

A

A

A

A

A

KGO

D+

D

D+

A

C

D+

B+

C

KNTV

D+

F

D

B

C+

D

D

D+

*Category explanations
below

**Newsworthiness counts
twice toward overall grade

Analysis
categories

Newsworthiness:
Core topics such as crime, weather, government/politics, education,
economics and health get more points than peripheral topics such as
celebrity news, fender-benders and sports. Stories affecting many people
score higher than those affecting just a few. Stories can score from
1 to 4 points, like a school grade, and are weighted by the proportion
of the newscast or newspaper display pages they occupy. If 88 percent
or more of the space goes to core topics affecting more than a few (more
than 10,000 persons in a region of 7 million), the news organization
rates an "A."

Context:
Number of sources. Four sources, including documents and "declined comment,"
rate an "A." But only two independent expert sources also rate an "A."
Stories are weighted by time or space, so longer stories count more
toward grades than shorter ones.

Explanation:
Stories about issues or thematic treatment of events have more explanatory
power and receive more credit than stories focused only a particular
event such as a fire or homicide. If 70 percent or more of the top stories
concern issues (including meetings) or patterns of events, an "A" is
assigned.

Local
relevance: Stories about what happens in the Bay Area, or localized
for the Bay Area, and stories affecting the whole state, rate more than
stories from elsewhere. To allow for important news from Iraq and elsewhere,
up to 35 percent of the news can be from afar without jeopardizing an
"A."

Civic
contribution: Stories about how government works, or protesting
government power, at any level from school board to Washington are counted.
Forty percent or more of the space or time devoted to top stories rates
an "A."

Enterprise:
Stories initiated by journalists seeking answers to pressing public
questions rate more than stories initiated by press releases and conferences
or listening to scanner radio reports of accidents and violent incidents.
Investigative reporting merits special consideration and is weighted
by a factor of 4. Forty percent or more of top story space or time devoted
to enterprise or investigative reporting rates an "A."

Fairness:
This applies only to locally produced stories that involve some type
of controversy or accusation of wrongdoing. If the other side is offered
an opportunity to speak (even if that opportunity is rejected), that
counts as fair. Eighty-five percent of content rated fair earns an "A."

Overall
grade: Because of its central importance, the newsworthiness index
is counted twice toward the total. All others are counted once. The
result is figured on a 4-point scale.